Edinburgh World Writers' Conference + Basharat Peer | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/series/edinburgh-world-writers-conference+basharat-peer
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Basharat Peer: 'The experience of censorship is as varied as the human experience itself'https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/01/censorship-kashmir-basharat-peer-speech
Threats, letter bombs, cover-ups … the Curfewed Night author describes Kashmir's culture of intimidation in his keynote speech at the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference in Jaipur<p>The experience of censorship is as varied as the human experience itself. On an April morning in 2002 I was a young reporter working for an Indian news portal and writing frequently about the wartorn Indian-controlled Kashmir, where I grew up. Reporting from a place like <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/kashmir" title="">Kashmir</a> was a fraught exercise, walking through a minefield of words and their consequences. I found a mentor in an older Kashmiri reporter, who had already been witnessing and reporting the horrors of our land for more than a decade. He would sit behind one of those first generation PCs in a semi-dark newspaper room, and between sips of tea and puffs of cigarette smoke tell me the stories of Kashmir.</p><p>I owe him a large part of my political education, my sense of writing from the field. One afternoon in April 2002, I was in his office when the news came of a young Kashmiri girl being raped in a small village in the southern mountains of Kashmir by Indian paramilitary soldiers. A tense silence followed. I wanted to leave immediately for that village; it was an hour from my ancestral village in south Kashmir. I could take a cab and get there and write the story. My friend smoked another cigarette and sighed. His memories of reporting similar cases filled the room. "Justice is rare here. Hardly any soldier gets tried and punished in a court of law for such crimes," he said. He had a wide range of contacts in the local civil service and police and by the evening he had enough details to file a report about the incident for his newspaper. Only later, I understood his reluctance to travel to her village. It was painful even in your detached role as a journalist; my friend had been to innumerable sites of atrocities.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/01/censorship-kashmir-basharat-peer-speech">Continue reading...</a>Edinburgh international book festivalBasharat PeerAutobiography and memoirBiographyBooksCultureCensorshipKashmirWorld newsFri, 01 Feb 2013 17:11:24 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/01/censorship-kashmir-basharat-peer-speechPhotograph: Mail Today/India Today Group/Getty Images'I was young and earnest' … Basharat Peer worked as a journalist in Kashmir. Photograph: Mail Today/India Today Group/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Mail Today/India Today Group/Getty Images'I was young and earnest' … Basharat Peer worked as a journalist in Kashmir. Photograph: Mail Today/India Today Group/Getty ImagesBasharat Peer2013-02-01T17:11:24Z